RJ WEEK 2016 just started!

The RJ WEEK 2016 just started. All over Europe and beyond, several organisations and individuals engaged in the RJ field are celebrating the RJ WEEK with a series of activities raising awareness about RJ and related fields. Follow it on social media: #RJWeek.

The EFRJ also organised some activities in Brussels and Leuven. This year the theme is ‘Arts, Justice and Storytelling’.

On 21 November in Brussels, we hosted a master-class on the educative and restorative aims of using theatre in prison settings. The speaker was Antonio Turco, cultural and educative director of the prison of Rebibbia in Rome. Among the participants, we had art-therapists, dancers, social workers, policemen, teachers, sociologists and theatre amateurs. The presentation, given in Italian, was translated by the professional interpreters Giuditta Formichi and Monica Brocca and hosted in the Brussels campus of KU Leuven.

Click here to download Turco’s presentation on theatre in prison. Please note that the PowerPoint is in Italian. In addition to this frontal presentation on the origins of theatre in Italian prisons (112 realities nowadays, including 42 theatre projects performed outside prisons by the detainees), Turco showed two short films acted by detainees in his theatre company: first, a ‘Monologue on forgiveness‘; second, a ‘Meeting between a victim and the author of crime‘. Both scripts have been written by the detainees who finally acted their own story on stage. Turco’s intervention included several personal stories and anecdotes, showing the charismatic and inspiring character of a man who devoted his life to the use of arts in prison settings.

Antonio Turco in action

On 23 and 25 November, the EFRJ will host two more events in Brussels and Leuven (a cartoon workshop and a digital workshop on restorative practices).